LETTER: Harsher action on mobile using drivers

Published:11:30Saturday 31 December 2016

In response to the recent rail strike, Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling quoted “no increased risk” from the Rail Safety and Standards Board, and has threatened to ban rail strikes. He also, said: “if I had the power to end it, I would.”

As a keen cyclist (100 miles being a ‘walk in the park’), I never needed public transport. But, in 1991, I was hit from behind by a ‘brainless’ driver. Today, aged 68, despite having both a brain injury and PTSD, 100 miles is still manageable. However, not unlike rail passengers fear losing their jobs, I, due to drivers using mobile phones, constantly fear losing my life – not least because ‘road thugs’ have killed five of my cycling pals. Because of my fear, I’ve been told to give up cycling – by the police no less. Do we give up using buses, trains and planes because of ‘brainless’ terrorists? Accordingly, I’d like to ask Chris Grayling: if you see fit to ban strikes on the railways, and given your ‘almighty’ power, why don’t you do more to stop drivers who use mobile phones? With more than seven million people, in working families, living in poverty (where a bicycle could carry them out of it), and rising sea temperatures, i.e. increased flood risk, and loss of jobs if not life, wouldn’t anything less than zero tolerance of ‘road thugs’, amount to a crime against humanity? Why allow five people a day to be killed on UK roads? Maybe not brutal, but surely, as senseless as government policy can get.